What does artificial intelligence see when it watches political ads?

Two actors pose for stock footage that can be used in political ads. Karen O’Connell, left, and Leslie Luxemburg pretend to chat over coffee. In a political ad, this clip could be used to illustrate any number of topics. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)Two weeks ago, the Internet Archive launched its new Political TV Ad Archive, which monitors television stations in 20 markets in eight U.S. states to compile a list of 2016 primary-election advertisements and uses audio fingerprinting algorithms to automatically flag every airing of those spots. [Who are all those smiling people in campaign advertisements?] The project will create a public database of political television ads in the 2016 race, where they are running and who is paying for them. Since the end of November, the archive has identified…